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Each social media platform has it's own best practices and nuances when it comes to crafting that perfect post. The infographic below helps walk you through some of the most recent best practices for November 2013.

In our previous post we discussed a Facebook marketing/promotion dilemma a long time Duluth friend of ours was having. We opened the problem up to our community and got back this great, lengthy, response from Axel Rosar a student at UMD.

Rather than post his response as a comment, we felt it was worth it's own post.

I’m going to focus on the Mission Video Freedom since it is
more of a service.

First, the page looks like it was thrown together in a short
amount of time. The cover photo is not aligned properly and the profile photo
is some random outdoors picture that I have no idea how it relates to Mission
Video Freedom. Also, the “mission” is repeated twice; one via photo, and one in
the “about section” which has grammatical errors.

Second, the page does not grab the viewers’ attention.
Having a cover photo of a jpeg from http://superioredtv.blogspot.com/
does not depict the actual mission of the service. I’ll explain.

Your mission is not “sharing video stories online of Jesus
working in people’s lives.” That is the service you do. This is your what. Your
“what” is not your focus, especially when relating to religion services. I’ll
elaborate. Every single person in this world knows “what” they do. Yours should
be, “We use digital media to spread the word of the Lord to display how the
Spirit works in people’s lives”. Your “how” is possibly, “We do this by using
short clips of blah blah-blah-blah”, whatever.

The MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR in why you may not getting as many
likes as you want is because you don’t know what your “why” is. Why are you
doing this, and revenue is a result, is not a “Why”; but more of what gets you
up in the morning? Why are you doing this rather than perusing your dream
career? Is this your dream career? If so, why?
I know I’m starting to sound like a broken record here but many people
start with their what, and end with their why. Most don’t even know what their
“why” is.

People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it. They
buy what you believe, and what they believe relates back to what you believe.
It’s a full circle. I’m going to try my best here, but how’s this sound. Why:
“We believe, the Lord, Jesus Christ, works miracles everyday through people’s
lives. We believe He influences us to be better people and we believe in
spreading the word of the Lord” or something of the sort. How: “We do this by
__________________________” What: We use digital media to spread the word of
the Lord to display how the Spirit works in people’s everyday lives”

It sounds like a lot of mumbo jumbo, but if you look at it
from a marketing stand point, your “Why, How, and what” are simply your factors
in creating brand awareness or attention.
It drives interest in your viewers
and participants. Watching your videos causes people to desire to take matters in their own hands which ultimately ends in
your “call to action”.

I know this may not be directly a business and communication
plan, but it will definitely help drive participation in those who believe what
you believe.

If you are looking for a direct answer, try this:

Target Market Profiling

Demographic

Gender, age, Race, Life Stage, Household Size,
Marital Status

Geographic

Region, City Size, Density (Local Duluth,
Superior, Twin Ports)

Socioeconomic (not the most important)

Income, Education, Occupation

Psychographic (EXTREMELY IMPORTANT)

Personality, Values, Lifestyle

Communication Strategy

Advertising, Public Relations, Events,

Digital promotion and Social Media Tactics

-
include creative samples

Cost Analysis

Measurement Standards and Evaluation

Metrics

I hope this can drive some more thoughts and at the end of
the day provide some help, and insight.

I got a recent email from a contact on LinkedIn. He's very passionate about the (video) projects he takes on. He's always tried hard to match his digital skills with ways to help the community. Unfortunately, these project don't typically have big budgets. He's struggled to grow the Facebook following of these projects beyond 100 fans. Here is the (shortened) messaged I received:

I responded back, looking for a better understanding on how he hoped to promote the pages. Asking if he was looking to only grow the pages organically, or if he was interested in growing them with Facebook paid promotions. His response:

"Right now organically is how I want to grow it. I have been using the Facebook interface to share. I am willing to spend some money in the future on both pages. The only one that has cash flow potential is "Mission Video Freedom."

This is where I struggle. I want to jump to having conversations about mission and goals and then move the strategy conversation from there to tactics and metrics. But I look at the pages (one without even claiming the Facebook URL) and my first instinct is to jump into tactical recommendations. It seems like there are so many best practices that have been skipped, that seems like the easiest win.

I was curious if we could use this question as a jump off point to have a conversation around Facebook marketing.

Is there still room for the small business or passion project to gain the needed traction on Facebook to survive.

Is there a better social media platform to share this story? If so, which one(s)?

Without funds, how do you best promote a Facebook page?

What are the "low hanging fruit" tactical recommendations?

What is the best crowd-funding site to raise funds for a cause like this?

How do you best advise someone with 40 fans to grow their social media promotions from a sleeper to a mini movement?

Please reply in the comments if you have any advice or answers to the questions above. If you're looking for a new volunteer opportunity and are interested in helping my friend move this project forward contact me and I can connect you.

There are at least 99 steps to blogging best practices. However, time and time again we get asked the same question: "how do I get started blogging?" The answer is simple, but so how hard for some people to do: "Start writing!" Once you start writing, you can start improving your blog, your content, your voice, etc.